LENDAS IN CRETE
The small coastal village of Lendas is 73km southeast of Iraklion, in the south
of Crete. The name Lendas derives from the word lion (liondas), because from
high up the peninsula looks shaped like a lion. Lendas is an ancient Greek and
Roman site, and has Byzantine churches and some escavations that you can visit.
It's a cosy little village filled with flowers and bougainville, friendly
people, and there are plenty of taverna's and a supermarket.

Compared to Kali Limenas or Tsoutsouros, both also difficult to reach villages in the south,
it's more touristic. The town beach in Lendas is rather small but 15 minutes
away on the east side you can find a very large, pretty and quiet beach, where
there is also a place for the nudists under us (like me ;). Our only problem
was how to find our way back out of the village towards Heraklion, and we were
not the only ones. A sign would have been a good plan, because maybe if you
visit you end up riding in circles like us and like other people. We finally
took a dirt track that took us to the right road that brought us back to where
we came from.

Lendas is the site of the ancient city Lebena. Although there was an early
Minoan site in the area, Lebena flourished mainly during the Greek and Roman
period when it was the harbour of Gortyn. There was a famous sanctuary for
healing here with a temple of Asklipios from the fourth century B.C. At the
site of the sanctuary, which is at the beginning of the modern village, one can
see traces of Roman mosaic, Greek coloured pebble mosaic representing a sea
horse, coloms, and marble steps among other features. On this site a Byzantine
church was build using also materials from the sanctuary. It's called the
church of Agios Ioannis Theologos. Next to this church you can see the remains
of the coloms that ones formed the older three-aisled basilica.